


Diana

by mattthedungeonbat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcoholic John Winchester, Baby Sam Winchester, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, FTM, FTM Dean, FTM Dean Winchester, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Character, Trans Dean, Trans Dean Winchester, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester, ftm character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-05-15 10:18:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14788656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattthedungeonbat/pseuds/mattthedungeonbat
Summary: A re-write of Supernatural if Dean had been assigned female at birth. What would be different? What would stay the same? Starting from the night of the fire, we follow Diana and her story of becoming Dean.





	1. In Which Diana Does Her Job

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER, there will be dialogue/scenes from the show as well as original dialogue/scenes. I Do Not own the dialogue you recognize. I'm just using it for fun.  
> Most of this will be interpreted from snippets in canon. If you see something not in canon, don't @ me. I don't exactly have fact checkers on hand.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night of the fire

 

_ November 2, 1983 _

_ Lawrence, Kansas _

_ Diana age 4, Sam age 6 months _

 

It’s a cold and creepy night. Diana never much liked the dark, but she’s willing to brave it to say goodnight to her brother. Mommy carries her through the dark halls so the monsters can’t get her ankles and puts Diana down when they reach little Sammy’s room. He’s only a baby, and babies are supposed to be taken care of, so Diana is proud that she gets to give Sam the first kiss goodnight before even Mommy. Mommy kisses Sam goodnight next and Diana watches. She feels possessive of Sam; he’s her only brother, her only sibling at all, really. She remembers being alone before he was born, even though she was still little back then herself. She remembers meeting him in the hospital and how she thought he looked very funny, all red and wrinkly. But still, even if he was an ugly baby, he was small and he needed to be protected. Diana would be his protector.

“Diana,” calls her father from the doorway.

Diana spins around in a swirl of blonde and runs to him. “Daddy!”

Daddy scoops her up with a smile, hefting her small weight onto his hip.

“How’s Sammy doing, sweetie?” He asks her, and Diana is proud that Daddy knows she knows things about her brother.

“He’s good!” She assures him. 

“That’s good,” Daddy says. 

Mommy has finished tucking Sammy in and walks over, putting one hand on Daddy’s arm and the other on Diana’s back. Diana feels like she’s floating, up high in Daddy’s arms, untouchable and powerful. And if she’s not so untouchable then Mommy will stand in front of her and protect them all anyways. 

“You got her?” Asks Mommy, and Daddy says he does. Diana leans back to watch as Mommy walks away to her bedroom, then lets the dip in her center of gravity sway her back into Daddy’s chest, where she settles her arms around his neck. Daddy is very warm, and Diana’s fingers are cold. She holds on and focuses on Daddy’s warmth, and barely hears him say goodnight to Sam.

The bounce and sway as Daddy carries her to her bedroom is a little jarring, but Diana can focus really hard and pretend it’s the gentler rocking of a boat.  _ Daddy walks a little funny _ , Diana thinks.  _ Like he’s a swaying tree. He looks big when he does it but I think he should fall over. I don’t know how he doesn’t.  _ She decides as Daddy tucks her in and kisses her goodnight that tomorrow she’ll try to walk like a tree too, and see if she doesn’t fall over. 

* * *

 

The sound of soft footsteps pulls Diana from a light sleep. She rolls over in bed.  _ Maybe Mommy just had to use the bathroom.  _ Diana always wakes up at the slightest noises. Daddy always says it’s cause she’s “diligent,” which must be a good thing, but Mommy always rolls her eyes at him when he says it. Diana is almost asleep again when a horrible scream rips through the house.

“Mary!” Yells Daddy’s voice, muffled from being downstairs. Diana hears him running up to the second floor but she’s frozen in her bed. That scream must have been Mommy and Diana’s never heard someone scream like that. The darkness pools around her bed and Diana is sure that if she steps off she’ll be screaming like Mommy did too.

She listens hard. She hears Daddy hurry into Sam’s room and a horrible fear lurches in her chest. Should she have gotten up? Sam is  _ her  _ responsibility-- but she didn’t know that’s where Mommy was. And it’s quiet again, she can hear snippets of Daddy’s voice, soft as he talks to Sam. Maybe she didn’t need to get up. She bundles into her blankets again, resolving to try and sleep.

“No! Mary!”

This time the jolt Diana gets has her body fully awake. She feels sparkling inside her veins as she vaults out of bed, soft feet landing silent on the wooden floor. She rushes to her door and stops without opening it, listening hard to the hall outside. A horrible roar shocks her back a step and beneath it she can almost hear Daddy’s voice. The house isn’t cold anymore, Diana realizes as she wrenches open her door, it’s warm and almost muggy and the wood beneath her feet gets hotter as she races down the hall to Sammy’s room. She can hear her brother crying and then there’s Daddy, holding Sammy in his arms.

“Daddy,” she starts, because she wants to know what happened, but Daddy is already leaning over and pushing Sam into her arms. She stumbles backwards in surprise at the sudden baby-warmth and the smell of rancid smoke, and Daddy speaks loud and commanding over the roar behind him.

“Take your brother outside as fast as you can,  _ don’t  _ look back! NOW, Diana, go!” 

Again that racing inside of Diana, air filling her chest, and she turns with her mission and runs before Daddy is even finished speaking. Down the hall, down the stairs, the wood getting colder with each step. She tightens her hold on Sammy-- she can’t see her feet, but she knows she won’t trip. Daddy shouts something incoherent behind her, but he’s not facing the front of the house and she can’t hear him well. The roar is getting louder though, and it lends speed to Diana’s feet as she flies out the front door and onto the grass, damp and freezing with dew. She whirls, grass squeaking, and looks back into the house. She’s too excited to fully worry if Daddy has made it out yet. She just wants to know what’s going on. 

“We’re okay, Sammy,” she assures the baby absentmindedly, and even before she’s finished talking there’s Daddy speeding out of the doorway like a big bat, and he sweeps her off her feet with Sammy still in her arms. 

“I gotcha,” Daddy says as he runs, but Diana isn’t scared. She thinks Daddy must be reassuring himself, because Diana is safe in her Daddy’s arms-- All they need now is Mommy to protect them and everything will be okay. 

A tiny pang of worry hits Diana in the stomach as Daddy hurries them away, and an upstairs window shatters and puffs out a big ball of fire. It was Mommy she heard scream first, Diana thinks, as Daddy sets her and Sammy down in the damp street and takes Sammy from her arms. She almost wants to protest, since Sammy is hers, but she knows Daddy is worried right now and Sammy was a little heavy anyways. Diana flaps her arms by her sides, relaxing the strained muscles, as she watches the doorway of the house. She doesn’t really know what happened. Mommy screamed, but this is Mommy we’re talking about-- she must be fine. Maybe she just got a fright by a spider.  _ That doesn’t explain the fire,  _ Diana thinks sarcastically to herself.  _ Maybe she got a fright by the fire, then. Somehow. I don’t know how. _

Mommy still hasn’t appeared in the doorway, and something breathless is beginning to take it’s hold in Diana’s lungs. She bounces on her bare toes, trying to lend speed or urgency or  _ something  _ to Mommy’s feet so she can appear faster. She hears the slap of Daddy’s feet on the road and feels his warm hand on her shoulder.

“Diana,” he says, and the weight in his voice slams Diana back onto her heels. Cold floods her body, unrelated to the biting night air. She doesn’t shake off Daddy’s hand, but she wants to, because she knows what he’s going to say and she doesn’t believe it.

“Diana,” he tries to say again, but the second half of her name is lost into breath. 

She shakes her head, and Daddy’s grip on her shoulder tightens.

“C’mere, sweetie,” He says, voice dry and rough like the crisping window panes of Sammy’s nursery. Diana lets her father pick her up and hold her on his lap next to Sammy. She tangles her fingers into the front of Sammy’s warm, soft baby blanket and stares at the door of their house, and the dense grey smoke beyond it.

* * *

 

Mommy never came out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have complaints with how Young!Dean (Diana) is written, consider that I'm writing basically my own childhood but with more fire and guns. The stuff Dean thinks about is legitimate stuff I thought about at his age. Is he too smart to be four? I don't know, I'm the only four-year-old I've ever been.  
> I'll be using Dean's deadname and incorrect pronouns up until he realizes they are, in fact, incorrect. This means he will be deadnamed/mispronouned a lot throughout this story.


	2. In Which Diana Hates Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John takes his now smaller family to a hotel.

_November 3, 1983_

_Lawrence, Kansas_

 

Diana hasn’t been able to sleep. After the policemen came to take their statements, Daddy drove them to a hotel. He’d told her to try and get some sleep on the ride there, but Diana had sat awake in the backseat, eyes wide and unblinking. The smell of smoke clings to her clothes like a deadly perfume, making her throat feel tight and gaggy. She never wants to smell smoke again. A fever rushes out across her skin for a second, down her arms and across her forehead in a cruel mockery of the fire. Diana shivers and feel tears prickle her eyes.

It’s finally cemented itself in her brain. Mommy is still in that house somewhere and she’s never coming out. Diana feels the hot tears begin to tremble over the edge of her eyelid. Mommy’s never coming out. She’ll never see Mommy again. Mommy can’t protect her anymore. Daddy keeps driving, unaware of her tears. _Probably sad about Mommy, too,_ Diana thinks. She doesn’t want him to know. Sammy is asleep in his car seat, and Diana hopes he’s too young to remember this night. He isn’t even a year old yet, so probably he can’t remember. Babies don’t really have memories, do they?

When Daddy turns into the parking lot of the hotel and the orange street lights flood the car, Diana ducks her head and silently swipes away the evidence of her tears. Daddy parks near the front entrance.

“I’m gonna--” Daddy’s voice breaks, and he clears his throat. “I’m gonna go inside, Di. Get us a room. Will you look after Sammy for me?”

She nods seriously and sits up so Daddy knows she means it. She'll always look after Sammy. Always. Daddy nods at her, but Diana can see the absence behind his eyes as he turns around and gets out of the car. He's not as worried about leaving them alone as he would be normally. She watches his broad, leather-covered back sway up into the hotel lobby.

Sammy is asleep, Diana realizes when she looks over to him. Or he seems to be. A rush of panic forces her hands into his car seat and-- _okay, good._ She can’t feel his pulse clearly, but his tiny mouth puffs out air against the back knuckle of her thumb.

Diana stares at her brother for a moment, fingers still set against his soft baby pudge. A beat inside her ribs, bigger than her heart, tells her that something has changed very badly. She wonders if little Sammy can feel her shake from her touch.

The driver’s side door opens and Diana jump and relaxes her hands to a more casual pose against the edge of Sammy’s seat. It’s Daddy, leaning in the door to put a card on the dashboard. He takes in the scene, Diana perched on the backseat with her hands on Sammy’s car seat, looking like a good big sister to her sleeping baby brother. _“Doting,”_ Diana thinks. She looks “doting.”

Daddy doesn’t need to say anything. He opens Diana’s door and she scoots out onto the pavement. Her feet are still bare, and she curls her toes against the slick, cold concrete. Daddy leans in from her side to pull over Sammy’s seat and unbuckle him. They don’t have any things to bring-- the house was still on fire as they left. “Nothing you can do,” Diana had heard a cop tell Daddy. Nothing _they_ could do, sure. Diana thought the cops should have done more than just stand there. But they have no things, so they walk into the hotel lobby empty handed. Diana’s feet feel slimy and slippery against the tiled floor, and she wonders if people are looking at her and Sammy and Daddy, all greyed with smoke and alone. A quick scan of the room reveals no one but the receptionist, but Diana still feels watched.

Daddy leads them to a room on the second floor. It’s small and claustrophobic, too dark without a window and decorated in warm colors. Daddy flicks on one light, enough to reveal a single bed and an ugly, rickety crib. Sammy goes straight into the crib, and he makes a small baby fussy noise when Daddy sets him down.

“I asked for some toothbrushes from the hotel,” Daddy says, taking off his coat and tossing it listlessly over the foot of the bed. “They should be on the counter in the bathroom, honey. Go brush your teeth.”

Diana nods. The carpeted floor of the room cleans the parking lot slime off the bottoms of her feet but her skin still feels damp. When she gets to the bathroom she stares at the multiple light switches, before poking all of them and then quickly turning off the fan. She takes one of the washcloths and swipes the moisture from her feet before climbing up onto the toilet seat and then onto the counter so she can brush her teeth.

The hotel didn’t give them toothpaste, so Diana brushes her teeth with water. It tastes yucky and somehow also like smoke, and Diana feels the nausea return to her throat. She spits and rinses quickly, knowing she did a bad job on her teeth but no longer trusting herself to have her mouth open. Then she washes her hands up to her elbows, hoping to rinse any smokey residue off of her skin. She doesn’t have extra clothes-- she’s only wearing a pyjama set-- so she knows she’ll have to make due with them. Still……. She takes off her pyjama shirt and sticks it into the sink basin, turning on the cold water and mushing the fabric between her hands. Maybe a good cold soak will take some of the smoke out.

Daddy comes in when she’s nearly done, and goosebumps break out across her skin. She knows she shouldn’t be washing her shirt but she’s doing it now and there’s no going back. Daddy doesn’t turn off the water, though, he simply takes a towel from the rack and drapes it over her shoulders, then waits for her to finish. Diana takes the extra time to mush her shirt hard in the water, then turns off the tap and brings the icy, sodden lump to her nose. It still smells like smoke, and suddenly the hot rush of tears is back.

 _I thought I could wash it out,_ she thinks as the tears begin to fall. _I thought--_

“Shh, sweetie,” Daddy says, taking the shirt from her numb fingers and wringing the water out with his big, strong hands. He flaps it open and drapes it over the shower curtain, then returns to the sink to rub her back. “Di…”

Diana makes a pitiful noise in her throat. She doesn’t want to cry, she doesn’t want Daddy to hug her, she doesn’t want to think about--

“I left my shirt on the foot of the bed, honey,” Daddy says, and Diana abruptly realizes he’s down to his olive green T shirt and jeans. “Go put that on and go to bed, okay? I’ll be there soon.”

Diana nods, maybe a little bit wildly. She slides over the edge of the counter onto the floor, letting Daddy guide her fall, glad for his hands when she stumbles. As she goes to the bed she hears Daddy run the water to brush his teeth and sigh when he realizes there’s no toothpaste. His flannel is on the foot of the bed like he told her it would be and Diana sheds the towel cape onto the floor and pulls on her Daddy’s big, warm shirt instead. It smells like smoke-- strongly-- but it also smells like Daddy in the underarm areas so she hitches the shirt up to her nose to try and smell more of Daddy and less of everything else. One corner of the bed is already turned down so Diana climbs in that side and buries herself under the feather duvet.

After a while she hears Daddy finish brushing his teeth. He clicks the lights off and joins her on the other side of the bed. It’s dark and Diana has her face up inside Daddy’s shirt so it’s doubly dark, but she feels Daddy reach over and hold onto her arm, reassuring himself that she’s there.


	3. In Which They Go To Mr. Mike's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day after the fire, John needs a place to stay.

_ November 4, 1983 _

_Lawrence, Kansas_

_Hotel_

 

Diana wakes up slowly. Her head feels heavy and foggy, and wisps of dream flash across her mind’s eye. Was it water in her dream? Mist? It had curled around her limbs and prickled her arm hairs. There had been something in her hand... she can't remember. But as her mind settles, no longer half asleep she does start to remember the night before. Daddy, walking like a tree. The darkness around her bed. The…. The scream. Diana realizes her heart is pounding and her head is starting to hurt-- she doesn’t want to remember it anymore, but she still sees it played across her eyelids in a frantic blur; her own feet, bare on the hot wooden floors. Daddy’s face ghoulishly backlit as he shouts at her to run. The front door, bouncing in and out of view over Daddy’s shoulder as he runs, full of swirling grey smoke. Diana curls up tightly, gripping the comforter as hard as she can. She doesn’t want to remember.

She blinks her gummy eyes open; the hotel room is dark, only one lamp on. Daddy is sitting at the desk, slumped and silhouetted, his temple resting on one hand, staring at a piece of hotel note paper. Sammy is still asleep in his crib, not moving or making a sound. Diana doesn’t want to get up. Her body is heavy and weak and her chest and head hurt. But she feels warmth against her back from the sheets and she doesn’t-- _want_ \-- to-- remember. She sits up, trying to throw the blankets back with one arm but she’s too small and too weak, they just flop unsatisfyingly back onto her. She slides out the side instead. Daddy’s face shifts slightly toward her, before he looks over his shoulder.

A chill hits Diana square in her heart. Daddy’s never looked like this before, looked at _her_ like this before. He’s got stubble on his jaw and deep bruises under his eyes, and his fingers are still marked a little black from the soot. It’s not unusual for him to look rough; most days when he comes home from work, his whole outfit is smeared black. But his eyes… Diana looks away from him and pads across the carpet to Sammy’s crib. His eyes aren’t warm anymore, they aren't sparkling like they should be. They’re... Hard. Daddy looks back at his paper as Diana grabs onto the bars of Sammy’s crib. Her baby brother looks just fine, all fat and swaddled in his crib. His little eyes are closed and his cheeks are round. Diana reaches through the bars to brush a flake of ash from his fine hair. Sammy is just fine. His eyes would still be that funny baby blue if they were open, she knew. She wonders if he’ll even know what happened.

Daddy finally moves, reaching for the phone. He dials quietly, looking at the paper. Diana listens to it ring.

 _”....nther residence, this is Mike,”_ comes a fuzzy male voice from the other side.

“Mike,” Daddy says, and Diana realizes he’s called his friend. Why was he looking at a paper then, if he already knows Mike’s number?

_“John? Ya sound a bit rough buddy, have a good night?”_

Daddy is silent, staring at the wall in front of him. A good night... Diana resists the urge to shift her weight; Daddy’s eyes are so hard and so cold and she doesn’t want to draw his attention.... She doesn't want him to look at her like that.

_”John?”_

“I need a place to stay, Mike.” Daddy’s voice is barely working. Every sentence begins with a rasp as Daddy's voice almost fails to engage. Mike is silent for a moment over the phone. Diana can imagine him thinking.

_“John…. What's happened?”_

Daddy sniffs. His free hand is shaking very slightly on top of the table. “Please, Mike. I need…. Me and my kids, we need a place to stay.”

Please. Diana knows Daddy isn't the begging type. Please... She can hear Mike sigh and imagines he’s nodding on the other side. He knows Daddy isn't the begging type too.

_“Of course, John. Kate and I have finished breakfast, I was about to head to the shop but I’ll stay around, help her get some things set up. You all head on over when you can, okay?”_

“Thank you,” Daddy says, and he hangs up before Mike has finished replying.

Daddy covers his eyes with his left hand, still holding the phone in the other. The tremor in his hands hasn't gone, if anything now it's a little worse. Diana doesn’t know what to do. She can tell where his mind has gone, or maybe it's just where his mind never left; she feels the pounding of her heart and her head is dizzy. She holds on tight to the bars of Sammy’s crib. Going to stay with Mr. Mike…. That’s where Daddy went before, when he and Mommy were fighting. Why were they going to Mr. Mike now?

Daddy sniffs again and hangs up the phone, then turns to look at his kids. Diana cringes back, but he isn't hard and scary anymore. For a second his gaze is soft as he takes in Diana by her brother’s crib, and Diana feels a little warmth again. A good warmth. Will Daddy hug her? Tell her it's alright? She needs someone to tell her it's going to be alright...

Then his eyes cloud over again.

“Come on, sweetie,” he says, gruff and distant, standing up from the desk chair. Diana moves out of the way so Daddy can pick up sleeping Sammy from his crib.

* * *

 

It’s not a long drive to Mr. Mike’s place. Diana recognizes the scenery quickly. The flower bed there... The funny looking tree-- she's not sure what kind, but it has bumps and tumors all over it's trunk... the broken fence there that's just like that, not because it was broken recently... Mrs. Kate and Mr. Mike are standing in the doorway waiting for them when Daddy pulls into their driveway.

“John, what’s going on?” Asks Mrs. Kate. She's dressed pretty like she always is in pale highwaisted jeans and a soft sweater, and Diana feels unpleasantly aware that she's only wearing her pyjama set and no shoes. Daddy takes baby Sammy in his arms and walks slowly up to Mr. Mike’s deck, and Diana follows at his heels, taking skipping half steps sometimes because Daddy is going too slow. 

Daddy tries to say something, his eyes focused on nothing and no one. Mike claps a hand on his shoulder and gently guides him inside, Mrs. Kate taking Diana’s hand and closing the door behind all of them. The inside of their house is airy and clean like Mrs. Kate's clothes, a straight hall to the dining room to the front, family room to the left and stairs to the right. Mr. Mike leads Daddy to the kitchen table, and Daddy sits heavily, not really looking at anything. Mrs. Kate watches for a second, before offering her arms for baby Sammy.

“Let me show the kids your room, John, leave you and Mike to do some catchin’ up.”

Diana doesn’t think Sammy should be allowed to be held by anyone but her and Daddy and-- but her and Daddy, but after a second Daddy hands him to Mrs. Kate anyways. Diana follows Mrs. Kate upstairs as Daddy accepts a glass of something from Mr. Mike. Mrs. Kate is smart, Diana knows. She's not quite as smart as Mommy, but she can tell things in a different way. 

“We only have one guest room,” Explains Mrs. Kate quietly as they walk down the hall. Her voice is smooth and happy. Diana finds herself walking like Daddy does, swaying like a tree, and she almost _does_ fall over but keeps her fingers on the wall just in case. “You and Sam and your Daddy will have to share, but luckily we still had our crib for little Sam.”

They stop in the doorway. The room is dressed exactly the same as the rest of the house, a large bed for Daddy and Diana in white sheets and a wooden dresser and a crib, with a window to the side yard with long white curtains. Normally Diana would be curious; the house smells like wood, exactly the kind of house to have secrets. Normally she would investigate the dark corners and the funny frames painted over, low on the wall. But Diana can’t make herself care about secrets or exploring. She nods as if she’s listening to Mrs. Kate.

Mrs. Kate puts Sammy into the crib and strokes his little cheek fondly. Diana feels a flame of possessiveness in her stomach. “He’ll wake up and be hungry soon, huh? Can you run downstairs and ask Mr. Mike to find a bottle for him? We have some leftover breakfast in the fridge as well, have him make you some of that."

Diana nods.

"Oh, wait--” Mrs. Kate clearly remembers that she was giving Daddy and Mr. Mike some room, but Diana has already left. A tiny part of her bristles at Mrs. Kate trying to keep her from hearing what Daddy and Mr. Mike are saying-- it's her right to know as much as it's theirs. She stops silently at the bottom of the staircase and leans against the wall to listen. Daddy’s and Mr. Mike’s voices are quiet, so Diana can’t make out everything, but she hears Mr. Mike pull out a chair and sit at the table with Daddy.

“...Jesus, John.”

Dang it, the story's already over. Diana's eyes flicker as the events of last night flash across her vision-- Daddy, darkness, fire, Sammy, run. Daddy's voice is rasping somewhere in the distance.

“I couldn’t do anything, I didn’t--”

“John, there’s nothing you _could_ have done. You got your kids out, thank God for that alone.”

Diana pauses. Daddy sounds as if he  _could_ have done something. Against a fire? She shivers involuntarily. A bad feeling has settled in her heart, but she doesn't know why. Daddy wasn't a fire fighter, he was a car person. What could he have done?

The sound of a glass being picked up, and Daddy swallowing. Diana imagines that Mr. Mike pats Daddy on the shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, John.”

Diana decides this is an innocent enough lull in the conversation. She stands up straight and opens her eyes a little wider than normal and walks into the hall with a dancing twist to her steps. She knows she swings like this sometimes when she’s not thinking about anything. she can't tell if she's playing it too innocent, though. Mr. Mike looks over his shoulder in alarm before realizing it’s just her.

“Diana?”

Diana mimes as if she’s holding a baby in her arms and feeding it a bottle, before jerking her thumb back the way she came. She feels a block in her chest whenever she tries to speak but right now that doesn’t matter; Daddy looks too sad to interrupt and Mr. Mike gets the message anyways. _I need a bottle to bring upstairs for Sammy._ He stands up, casting a sad glance at Daddy before going into the kitchen to look through the cabinets.

Diana walks to the table to take Mr. Mike’s chair. It’s still warm as she climbs up to sit on it. Daddy doesn’t look at her; his eyes are lost and empty as he stares at the table and-- no, wait, he’s not staring at the table. Diana leans forward to see past his empty whiskey glass; it’s the piece of hotel note paper. There’s a fold down the middle, but Diana can see that it’s a drawing in ballpoint pen, messy and hard to make out. A woman with dark spots on her middle, surrounded by a blooming curly background. The lines are shaky and spotted, like it was drawn by a trembling hand with an old, unreliable pen. A hotel pen, maybe. But before Diana can ponder further, Daddy almost slams the drawing shut and stuffs it into his pocket, and Diana hurriedly sits back in her chair. He still won’t look at her, but he doesn’t tell her off, either. Shouldn't he have? He just turns his head away to look out the window. Mr. Mike comes around her shoulder, a baby bottle of milk in his hand.

“Come on upstairs, kiddo, so we can feed your brother. Have you eaten yet?”

She shakes her head no, looking at Daddy, but he doesn’t respond so she gets down from the chair and follows Mr. Mike. Mr. Mike puts a hand on her shoulder. "We have some leftovers in the fridge, I'll have Kate fix them up for you and John."

Upstairs in the guest room, Mrs. Kate is leaning over the crib, smiling and crooning to a baby Sammy who’s now woken up. Diana takes the bottle from Mr. Mike's hand and walks in, gently pushing between Mrs. Kate and her brother's crib. Mrs. Kate picks up Sammy for her and is bending down towards her when Mr. Mike speaks.

“Kate,” Mr. Mike says, and she looks up with a smile that quickly drops. “Diana can feed her brother, come downstairs and help me fix the leftovers.” _We need to talk._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm well aware that I'm messed up a few details here and there. I'm considering this just the first draft of the story; once it's all written out, I'll come back and fix the details and maybe add new storylines. Right now my focus is just writing it.


End file.
